er.

"The committee will now proceed to the consideration of, and to report upon the subject of persons owing service or labor in one state escaping into anothThe text of the constitution is quite clear: "No person held to labor or service in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation threin, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on the claim of the party to whom such service or labor is due." Nothing can be more explicit than this language; nothing more manifest than the right to demand, and the obligation to deliver up to the claimant, any such fugitive. And the constitution addresses itself alike to the states composing the Union and to the general government. If, indeed, there were any difference in the duty to enforce this portion of the constitution between the states and the federal government, it is more clear that it is that of the former than of the latter. But it is the duty of both. It is well known and incontestable that citizens of slaveholding states encounter the greatest difficulty in obtaining the benefit of this provision of the constitution.

"The attempt to recapture a fugitive is almost always the subject of great irritation and excitement, and often leads to most unpleasant, if not perilous collisions. An owner of a slave, it is quite notorious, cannot pursue his prop erty, for the purpose of its recovery, in some of the states, without iminent personal hazard. This is a deplorable state of things, which ought to be remedied. The law of 1793 has been found wholly ineffectual, and requires more stringent enactments. There is especially a deficiency in the number of public functionaries authorized to afford aid in the scizure and arrest of fagitives. Various states have declined to afford aid and cooperation in the surrender of fugitives from labor, as the committee believe, from a misconception of their duty, arising under the constitution of the United States. It is true that a decision of the supreme court of the United States has given countenance to them in witholding their assistance. But the committee cannot but believe that the intention of the supreme court has been misunderstood. They cannot but think that that court merely meant that laws of the several states, which created obstacles in the way of the recovery of fugitives, were not authorized by the constitution, and not that the state laws affording facilities in the recovery of fugitives were forbidden by that instrument. The non-slaveholding states, whatever sympathies any of their citizens may feel for persons who escape from other states, cannot discharge themselves from an obligation to enforce the constitution of the United States. All parts of the instrument being dependent upon, and connected with each other, ought to be fairly and justly enforced. If some states may seek to exonerate themselves from one portion of the constitution, other states may endeavor to evade the performance of the other portions of it; and thus the instrument, in some of the most important provisions, might become inoperative and invalid.

"But, whatever may be the conduct of individual states, the duty of the general government is perfectly clear. That duty is, to amend the existing law, and provide an effectual remedy for the recovery of fugitives from service or labor. In devising such a remedy, congress ought, whilst, on the one hand, se

curing to the owner the fair restoration of his property, effectually to guard, on the other, against any abuses in the application of that remedy.

"In all cases of arrest, within a state, of persons charged with offenses; in all cases of the pursuit of fugitives from justice from one state to another state; in all cases of extradition, provided for by treaties between foreign powers, the proceeding uniformly is summary. It has never been thought necessary to apply, in cases of that kind, the form and ceremonies of a final trial. And, when that trial does take place, it is in the state or country from which the party has fled, and not in that in which he has found refuge. By the express language of the constitution, whether the fugitive is held to service or labor, or not, is to be determined by the laws of the state from which he fled; and, consequently, it is most proper that the tribunals of that state should expound and administer its own laws. If there have been any instances of abuse in the erroneous arrest of fugitives from service or labor, the committee have not obtained knowledge of them. They believe that none have occurred, and that such are not likely to occur. But, in order to guard against the possibility of their occurrence, the committee have prepared, and herewith report a section, (marked B,) to be offered to the fugitive bill now before the senate. According to this section, the owner of a fugitive from service or labor is, when practicable, to carry with him to the state in which the person is found a record from a competent tribunal, adjudicating the fact of elopement and slavery, with a general description of the fugitive. This record, properly attested and certified under the official seal of the court, being taken to the state where the person owing service or labor is found, is to be held competent and sufficient evidence of the facts which had been adjudicated, and will leave nothing more to be done than to identify the fugitive.

"Numerous petitions have been presented praying for a trial by jury, in the case of arrest of fugitives from service or labor in the non-slaveholding states. It has been already shown that this would be entirely contrary to practice and uniform usage in all similar cases. Under the name of a popular and cherished institution-an institution, however, never applied in cases of preliminary proceeding, and only in cases of final trial-there would be a complete mockery of justice, so far as the owner of the fugitive is concerned. If the trial by jury be admitted, it would draw after it its usual consequences; of continuance from time to time, to bring evidence from distant places; of second or new trials, in cases where the jury is hung, or the verdict set aside; and of revisals of the verdict and conduct of the juries by competent tribunals. During the progress of all these dilatory and expensive proceedings, what security is there as to the custody and forthcoming of the fugitive upon their termination? And if, finally, the claimant should be successful, contrary to what happens in ordinary litigation between free persons, he would have to bear all the burdens and expenses of the litigation, without indemnity, and would learn, by sad experience, that he had by far better abandoned his right in the first instance, than to establish it at such unremunerated cost and heavy sacrifice.

"But, whilst the committee conceive that a trial by jury in a state where a

fugitive from service or labor is recaptured, would be a virtual denial of justice to the claimant of such fugitive, and would be tantamount to a positive refusal to execute the provision of the constitution, the same objections do not apply to such a trial in the state from which he fled. In the slaveholding states, full justice is administered, with entire fairness and impartiality, in cases of all actions for freedom. The person claiming his freedom is allowed to sue in forma pauperis; counsel is assigned him; time is allowed him to collect his witnesses and to attend the sessions of the court; and his claimant is placed under bond and security, or is divested of the possession during the progress of the trial, to insure the enjoyment of these privileges; and, if there be any leaning on the part of courts and juries, it is always to the side of the claimant for freedom.

"In deference to the feelings and prejudices which prevail in non-slaveholding states, the committee propose such a trial in the state from which the fugitive fled, in all cases where he declares to the officer giving the certificate for his return that he has a right to his freedom. Accordingly, the committee have prepared, and report herewith, (marked C,) two sections which they recommend should be incorporated in the fugitive bill, pending in the senate. According to these sections, the claimant is placed under bond, and required to return the fugitive to that county in the state from which he fled, and there to take him before a competent tribunal, and allow him to assert and establish his freedom, if he can, affording to him for that purpose all needful facilities.

"The committee indulge the hope that if the fugitive bill, with the proposed amendments, shall be passed by congress, it will be effectual to secure the recovery of all fugitives from service or labor, and it will remove all causes of complaint which have hitherto been experienced on that irritating subject. But if, in its practical operation, it shall be found insufficient, and if no adequate remedy can be devised for the restoration to their owners of fugitive slaves, those owners shall have a just title to indemnity out of the treasury of the United States.

"It remains to report upon the resolutions in relation to slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. Without discussing the power of congress to abolish slavery within the district, in regard to which a diversity of opinion exists, the committee are of opinion that it ought not to be abolished. It could not be done without indispensable conditions which are not likely to be agreed to. It could not be done without exciting great apprehension and alarm in the slave states. If the power were exercised within this district, they would apprehend that, under some pretext or another, it might hereafter be attempted to be exercised within the slaveholding states. It is true that, at present, all such power within those states is almost unanimously disavowed and disclaimed in the free states. But experience in public affairs has too often shown that where there is a desire to do a particular thing, the power to accomplish it, sooner or later, will be found or assumed.

"Nor does the number of slaves within the district make the abolition of slavery an object of any such consequence as appears to be attached to it in

some parts of the Union. Since the retrocession of Alexandria county to Virginia, on the south side of the Potomac, the district now consists only of Washington county, on the north side of that river; and the returns of the decenary enumeration of the people of the United States show a rapidly progressing decrease in the number of slaves in Washington county. According to the census of 1830, the number was 4,505; and in 1840 it was reduced to 3,320; showing a reduction in ten years of nearly one-third. If it should continue in the same ratio, the number, according to the census now about to be taken, will be only a little upward of two thousand.

"But a majority of the committee think differently in regard to the slave trade within the district. By that trade is meant the introduction of slaves from adjacent states into the district, for sale, or to be placed in depot for the purpose of subsequent sale or transportation to other and distant markets. That trade, a majority of the committee are of opinion, ought to be abolished. Complaints have always existed against it, no less on the part of members of congress from the south than on the part of members from the north. It is a trade sometimes exhibiting revolting spectacles, and one in which the people of the district have no interest, but, on the contrary, are believed to be desirous that it should be discontinued. Most, if not all, of the slaveholding states have, either in their constitutions or by penal enactments, prohibited a trade in slaves as merchandise within their respective jurisdictions. Congress, standing in regard to this district, on this subject, in a relation similar to that of the state legislatures to the people of the states, may safely follow the example of the states. The committee have prepared, and herewith report, a bill for the abolition of that trade (marked D), the passage of which they recommend to the senate. This bill has been framed after the model of what the law of Maryland was when the general government was removed to Washington.

"The views and recommendations contained in this report may be recapitulated in a few words:

"1. The admission of any new state or states formed out of Texas to be postponed until they shall hereafter present themselves to be received into the Union, when it will be the duty of congress fairly and faithfully to execute the compact with Texas, by admitting such new state or states.

"2. The admission forthwith of California into the Union, with the boundaries which she has proposed.

"3. The establishment of territorial governments, without the Wilmot proviso, for New Mexico and Utah, embracing all the territory recently acquired by the United States from Mexico, not contained in the boundaries of California.

"4. The combination of these two last mentioned measures in the same bill. "5. The establishment of the western and northern boundaries of Texas, and the exclusion from her jurisdiction of all New Mexico, with the grant to Texas of a pecuniary equivalent; and the section for that purpose to be incorporated

in the bill admitting California and establishing territorial governments for Utah and New Mexico.

"6. More effectual enactments of law to secure the prompt delivery of persons bound to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, who escape into another state; and,

"7. Abstaining from abolishing slavery; but, under a heavy penalty, prohibiting the slave-trade in the District of Columbia.

"If such of these several measures as require legislation should be carried out by suitable acts of congress, all controversies to which our late territorial acquisitions have given rise, and all existing questions connected with the institution of slavery, whether resulting from those acquisitions, or from its existence in the states and the District of Columbia, will be amicably settled and adjusted, in a manner, it is confidently believed, to give general satisfaction to an overwhelming majority of the people of the United States. Congress will have fulfilled its whole duty in regard to the vast country which, having been ceded by Mexico to the United States, has fallen under their dominion. It will have extended to it protection, provided for its several parts the inestimable blessing of free and regular government, adapted to their various wants, and placed the whole under the banner and the flag of the United States. Meeting courageously its clear and entire duty, congress will escape the unmerited reproach of having, from considerations of doubtful policy, abandoned to an undeserved fate territories of boundless extent, with a sparse, incongruous, and alien, if not unfriendly population, speaking different languages, and accustomed to different laws, whilst that population is making irresistible appeals to the new sovereignty to which they have been transferred for protection, for government, for law, and for order.

"The committee have endeavored to present to the senate a comprehensive plan of addjustment, which, removing all causes of existing excitement and agitation, leaves none open to divide the country and disturb the general harmony. The nation has been greatly convulsed, not by measures of general policy, but by questions of a sectional character, and, therefore, more dangerous, and more to be deprecated. It wants repose. It loves and cherishes the Union. And it is most cheering and gratifying to witness the outbursts of deep and abiding attachment to it, which have been exhibited in all parts of it, amidst all the trials through which we have passed, and are passing. A people so patriotic as those of the United States, will rejoice in an accommodation of all troubles and difficulties by which the safety of the Union might have been brought into the least danger. And, under the blessing of that Providence who, amidst all vicissitudes, has never ceased to extend to them His protecting care, His smiles, His blessings, they will continue to advance in population, power, and prosperity, and work out triumphantly the glorious problem of man's capacity for self-government."

The debate on the principal bill reported, continued in the senate until July. The grouping of so many subjects in one bill gave it the name of "the omnibus." In its passage through the senate it had been trimmed down by amend